Matthias Hoelzer-Kluepfel recently announced Java bindings for DCOP. In other words, Java can now communicate with and control KDE2 applications. A welcome addition to the existing C bindings for DCOP, originally used by the long gone kmapnotify. Then, of course, there's kxmlrpc which provides a bridge to DCOP for anything that can speak HTTP and XML (eg, control DCOP-speaking apps from a shell script or python). And as if all that wasn't enough, there's the command-line or point-n-shoot DCOP browser/executor that just goes to show how far, flexible and mature DCOP has become in a short matter of time. Simplicity pays off in the end.

What's the point? If I wanted to write an app with KDE support, I would write a native KDE app, in C++, etc. The whole point of Java is to write cross-platform programs, which are not tied to any particular operating system. Don't get me wrong, I like KDE, but lets not add 'non-WORA' extensions to Java.